Aaron Smith-Levin

The Church of Scientology has launched its cable channel. It has done so by purchasing time on a 24/7/365 basis on channel 320 on Direct TV. However, for all intents and purposes Scientology Television appears to be depending upon being live-streamed on YouTube.

Thus, we can use existing YouTube statistics to predict Scientology Television’s potential for success on YouTube.

Our only caveat is that Scientology’s published numbers are notoriously unreliable and often completely false. For example, Scientology has variously claimed it has eight million members, twelve million members, or simply millions of members.

Absent any independent third party audit, we must take Scientology’s numbers to be both inflated and unverifiable. Moreover, Scientology’s STAND League on Twitter was caught using stock photos and claiming these were actual Scientologists. These fake “stock photo Scientologists” were exposed as such. Scientology has also been suspected of using click farms to boost ratings. With these factors in mind, we proceed with our analysis of Scientology’s performance on YouTube.

We begin with Scientology’s main YouTube channel. We learn there that this channel began on September 19, 2006 and claims 30,521,562 views as of March 14, 2018:

We note that Scientology refuses to disclose the number of subscribers to its channel. Drilling down, we use the YouTube feature that allows us to sort videos from the most popular to the least popular. Here are the ten most popular videos by rank on Scientology’s YouTube channel:

This data shows us that Scientology’s top ten videos have a total of 11,182,000 views. This is 36.6% of the total views claimed for the channel. Of note is Scientology’s 2018 Super Bowl ad with a claimed 2.9 million views. This means that one 2018 Super Bowl commercial accounts for 10% of all views since the channel opened in 2006.

What this tells us is that Scientology spent millions of dollars on a one-time Super Bowl ad in early 2018 to gain 10% of its total YouTube traffic since 2006. This does not bode well for Scientology Television as the channel is not tied to advertising on high profile televised network events such as the Super Bowl, the World Cup, the Academy Awards, or major television franchises like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, or The Big Bang Theory.

Once we deduct the numbers for Scientology’s top ten YouTube videos, we are left with 19,339,562 views since the channel began 135 months ago in September 2006. Less the top ten videos, then, Scientology YouTube has averaged a paltry 143,256 views per month since its inception.

Scientology’s ten lowest ranking YouTube videos produced a pathetic 143,000 views; four of these videos were “The Way to Happiness” themed:

By way of contrast, the top 20 Scientology channels and videos on YouTube that are not favorable to Scientology have a total 72,850,000 views:

Name

YT Channel Name

Total Views in millions

Tom Cruise – Leaked Go to Guns Video

Aleteuk

12.3

Karen de la Carriere

Surviving Scientology Channel

7.4

Mark Bunker

Xenu TV Channel

7.1

Some crazy scientology stuff

hashmanis

5.7

Message to Scientology

Anonymous

5.3

Tom Cruise’s Heated Interview With Matt Lauer

Today

5.3

Angry Gay Pope

Angry Gay Pope Channel

5

Tory Christman

ToryMagoo44!

4

Chris Shelton

Critical Thinker at Large Channel

3.6

Joe Rogan Interviews Leah Remini

Joe Rogan Experience

2.3

Scientology in 100 Seconds

AllHailXenuFilm

2

Steven Mango

Steven Mango Channel

1.78

Chelsea – Netflix

Leah Remini Explains Scientology’s Scam

1.67

The Master: How Scientology Works

Nerdwriter1

1.6

Aaron Smith-Levin

Growing Up in Scientology Channel

1.5

Leah Remini on the Cult of Scientology

Real Time with Bill Maher

1.3

Joe Rogan Interviews Ron Miscavige

Joe Rogan Experience

1.3

Scientology – Louis Theroux

Joe Rogan Experience

1.3

Matthew Santoro

10 Insane Facts About Scientology

1.3

Shocking Facts About Scientology

TheRichest

1.1

Total Views

72.85

The conclusion here is that a highly active group of former Scientologists, critics, and media outlets can easily outpace the three billion dollar Scientology Cult on social media without multi-million dollar Super Bowl ads; 24/7/365 live streaming on YouTube; or spending $4 million dollars per year on carriage fees on Direct TV as Lloyd Grove stated in his recent Daily Beast article David Miscavige Comes Out of the Shadows on the First Night of Scientology’s TV Network. Further, we are restricting our analysis in this article to YouTube; we do not take into account books, movies, and televisions shows. Hence, Going Clear, the book and the film, Leah Remini’s Scientology and the Aftermath, CNN’s A History of Violence, the Tampa Bay Times’ The Truth Rundown, Tony Ortega’s Underground Bunkerand the other leading exposes of Scientology are not factored into our discussion at hand.

In terms of strategy and content, the playlists on Scientology’s YouTube channel suggest that we can expect to see more of the same content from Scientology Television:

Based on the foregoing, my prediction is that this will be the exact content we can expect to see repeated endlessly on Scientology Television:

Speeches at Ideal Org grand openings by low-ranking functionaries, for example Captain John Galindo, Operations Director National Circle of Aid Technicians of Colombia

What stood out to me in my review of Scientology’s YouTube website for this article is that Scientologist skateboarder Aaron has the largest number of views for an individual Scientologist. With 809,524 views, this young man’s ratings far and away eclipse the ratings for any video featuring Scientology leader David Miscavige. VWD Aaron!

The least popular Scientologist in the “Meet a Scientologist” series of videos appears to be Omar, an expeditionary pilot. Poor Omar has only 1,010 views since his video was released on October 28, 2010:

Bottom Line: My prediction is that Scientology Television will follow the same trajectory as an Ideal Org – which is to say that it will have a shelf life of three weeks and then it will die on the vine.

With an Ideal Org there is excitement the week before the grand opening and David Miscavige’s rope pull. Then there is excitement the two weeks after the grand opening. Thereafter, it is business as usual with the demands for stats, more money, and to get bodies into the shop. Apathy sets in and soon the glory of the grand opening gives way to the punishing and cruel grind of everyday life in Scientology.

The initial burst of interest in Scientology Television will quickly collapse once people see that it is a 24/7/365 cycling of the same content ad nauseum. L. Ron Hubbard’s pedantic lectures and Scientology hyperbole wears thin very quickly; particularly when Netflix beckons.

Description: Aaron Smith-Levin and Jeffrey Augustine discuss Marty Rathbun’s video series in which he uses lies, distortions, and falsehoods to attack those who speak out against Scientology. Marty has no credibility according to the Church of Scientology itself. So why are Marty’s videos on Scientology’s website?

Example: Below is a dead agent attack on Marty Rathbun from a Scientology website. This begs the question: How can Marty Rathbun be considered a credible source by the Church of Scientology given the many hate sites it has up on Marty?

Nancy Cartwright just did a video in which she attacked Going Clear. After watching the video, I’ve concluded that Cartwright is just another Scientology celebrity pawn who has been played to do the bidding of the Office of Special Affairs.

OSA may not have given Nancy the news: Going Clear earned seven Emmy nominations and won three Emmy’s. Going Clear also made the Oscar short list for Best Documentary. Alex Gibney won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature for his 2007 work Taxi to the Dark Side.

In Nancy’s video she uses the same tired old PR line and tells people to find out for themselves what Scientology is by reading a book. Okay. I have met this requirement and more. I have found out for myself what Scientology really is and does and I think it is a malicious and dishonest criminal Cult. And I am hardly alone in my informed opinion.

Over the years I have read Dianetics, the Basics, and listened to the Congresses. I have also read and studied Scientology’s legal cases, IRS records, and interviewed many former top Scientology executives. I found $1.5 billion in Scientology assets listed in IRS 990-T forms filed by Scientology churches. More than ten million dollars of this money was presumably donated by Nancy Cartwright, and yet, the PR of the Church of Scientology continues to get worse. This is, apparently, why OSA needs Nancy’s face and name in another one of its failed attempts to dead agent Going Clear. Nancy Cartwright, however, is just not an OSA attack dog. She looked unnatural, forced, and uncomfortable in this attack video. If OSA needed an attack dog it should have called Kirstie Alley.

My wife Karen de la Carriere was a Class XII C/S who served onboard the Flagship Apollo and was personally trained by L. Ron Hubbard. LRH only trained seven Class XII’s and Karen was one of them. Karen knows more about Scientology than Nancy Cartwright does or ever will. My wife especially knows the sadistic side of Scientology Disconnection. When Karen’s son Alexander Jentzsch died at age 27, your Church did not have the basic human decency to tell her that her son had died. We found out through the kindness of a stranger whom, we later discovered, was former Sea Org executive Aaron Smith-Levin. He had the humanity to let us know Alexander had died — and he did so at great risk to himself when he was still in the Church. When we learned that Alexander had died, Scientology would not let Karen see her dead son’s body and kiss him goodbye one last time. Is Nancy Cartwright seriously defending this depraved Scientology conduct?

Nancy Cartwright is telling people to read a book about Scientology when she darned well knows that none of the books will ever tell the public the real truth about Scientology? For example, none of Scientology’s books will inform the public of the four unconscionable contracts Scientology uses to legally ensnare people and strip them of their legal rights.

Nancy Cartwright withholds from the public the worst parts of Scientology: Fair Game, Disconnection, sleep deprivation torture in the Sea Org, child labor, RPF, financial rape of parishioners, exploitation of Sea Org members by paying slave wages, and the Master Race and Genocide doctrines of Scientology. If Nancy Cartwright actually wanted people to truly learn about Scientology then she would have to give it to them straight: The good, the bad, and the ugly. She’s not doing herself or Scientology any favors by lying and withholding. She’s only making it worse by proving that Scientology has massive withholds on the public. Going Clear is not the problem here. Scientology is the problem.

Nancy Cartwright needs to tell the whole truth. She should talk about Xenu, volcanoes, BT’s, clusters, Marcabs and everything else that the public can’t read in Scientology’s books. She should talk about all the materials in the secret course packs in AO, Flag, and the Ship. These materials constitute the the real Scientology.

What Nancy Cartwright is saying — read a book — is dishonest and misleading because the books never describe the Real Scientology. This is why people out here in the real world write blogs, books, and make movies in order to expose what Real Scientology is actually about. Nancy and her fellow Scientology celebrities can’t talk about the real Scientology. Like puppets dancing on strings, Scientology’s celebrities can only say and think what they’ve been ordered to say and think by the Office of the President, Celebrity Centre Int.

When it comes to The Simpsons, I enjoy Nancy Cartwright’s work and always have. When it comes to Scientology, however, I consider her to be just another Scientology pawn like Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley, John Travolta and the rest of the Celebrity Centre pawns. Scientology invariably makes pawns out of its celebrities. These celebs do what they are ordered to do because they want to keep their OT eligibility.

Nancy Cartwright is a Scientology New OT VIII. She has reached the pinnacle of Scientology and so now what? Is her next step donating more money to Flag so she can run laps five hours a day on the torture program known as the Survival Rundown?

In a fascinating and wide raging interview with Jeffrey Augustine, former Sea Org member Aaron Smith-Levin discusses the topics of Scientology’s controversial Freeloader bills, the Clear Cognition, and other topics.